Inquiry, Action Research, & PLCs

Years 2-3 were designed to run as a combination of teacher inquiry, Action Research and Professional Learning Communities more along the lines of Michigan State's Professional Development Schools and less along the lines of DuFour. A range of possible topics (see list below) that fit within the overall scope of !gnite! were proposed with the understanding that teachers could suggest others. Teachers would meet monthly to complete the steps below, with facilitators able to co-teach or support in the classroom during the month.

Overall Process

• Overview of potential topics by !gnite! trainers and teachers
• Inquiry & Design Challenge
  • Select a topic
  • Draft a focus question and subquestions, that include student learning, and be prepared to revise these throughout the challenge
  • Search for existing resources (articles, websites, blogs, videos, etc.)
  • Jigsaw notetaking and sharing of resources
  • Individually, design a student resource, activity type, or project to try in the classroom over the next month to test. Then, get feedback from partners.
  • Try out resource, activity type, or project during the month and post a digital share
  • Meet with team to share results, revise resources, activity types, or projects as necessary.
  • Continue to develop a wiki page to share outside resources, student resources, activity types, and projects as well as on-going reflections. Ideally, these should be designed to help others bootstrap themselves more quickly/thoughtfully.
  • Finally, prepare a self-paced professional development activity designed to acquaint others with your topic and interest them in trying it out (thoughtfully) in their classroom. Consider the Professional Development Activity Types while planning, remembering to model quality pedagogy whenever possible. Add this activity to your wiki page.
  • During the final monthly session, select another group's pd activity to test drive and provide feedback.
• Link to another page detailing Sara's version?

Possible Topics

• Bringing the Outside World In
• Challenge Based Learning
• Concept Maps and Graphic Organizers to Help Students Represent Core Content Connections
• Connecting Student Voices Through Class Blogs
• Digital Writing Workshop
• Electronic Portfolios
• Habits of Mind (continuing one from year 1 or selecting another)
• Inquiry Skills for a Digital Age
• Multimodal Writing
• Personal Learning Networks for Students
• Problem Based Learning
• Questioning
• Sharing Student Learning Through Podcasts
• Social Bookmarking and Annotating
• Socratic Questioning and Online Discussions
• WebQuests
• Suggest another (remember it needs to have a balance TPaCK and fit the overall zeitgeist of !gnite!)